Bits. I said bits. I know there are a bunch of novelists circulating around here. Time for a roll call on Whitechapel. Show yourselves, tell me what you do, provide links to work and information and purchasing where possible. Say hello.

The package, it’s a package. It’s brown. It’s paper, but not an envelope. A wrapped box, maybe, but it doesn’t have the rigid feel of cardboard. Not stiff, but not spongy. Just there. Really. That’s it. There. It’s about so big by so big, comfortable to carry, but you know that you’ve got it under one arm. It’s not heavy, not light. Something that won’t make it hard to run up a flight of stairs or open a fire door. Would probably fit in my messenger bag. It’s whatever. It’s a package. I’ve carried hundreds. It’s just a package.

There’s the handoff, in the elevator kiosk on Fifty, the suit to the polo shirt. “Hey, how ya doin’?” Handing over the clipboard, the tag ready to be filled out and signed. “Good, good, sorry about the delay.” A scritch-scratch with my ballpoint, destination point and that signature, the signature which is God in this business, jotted along the dotted line. “No problem, that’s the job, right?” Dry little chuckle, the whitecollar giving props to the bluecollar as the clipboard comes back to me. I could strangle him to death right here, clock him in the head with the hard edge of the clipboard and send him to his knees, leap on him, bury my thumbs into the soft hollow of his neck, an inch above that red slash of a tie. Strangle him to death in front of all the security cameras and they’d never stop me in time. Catch me on the way out, sure. Blocking the stairwells, locking the lobby doors. Rentacops pounding leather through the maintenance hallways, hellbent on earning their minimum wage plus 10% bringing down the psycho who just took out a promising young exec from the heralded firm of Whomsoever & Whomsoever. A blurb on page six of the Metro Section, twenty seconds and a couple of soundbites on the 11 o’clock local news. My shaved head and leering grin getting marched out of the courthouse in an orange jumpsuit. Would I be a force, in prison? Would I find previously untapped reservoirs of internal steel and sheer brutality? Or, really, would I just be one more ugly bitch traded for a rock of crack and a handful of stale Marlboros?

Hey Warren, fellow fans of Warren. A friend (the right honourable Mr Andrew Brabzon Booth) and I (Gareth Stack) are writing our first novel - a satirical take on modern, postmodern, and 'Great American' novels averywhere. We're posting it as it's written here, we're 16 chapters in at this point.

Here are the first couple of paragraphs..

"Iago Coakes woke from a most beautiful dream. In this hypnagogia, he and Doris Fray, a girl he’d known in high school, had been sailing. Coakes’ first thought on waking was that the fresh mist of salt, and by inference, his whole dream, had come from ferrous iron, the gingivitic seep which caked in sticky horizontal ridges on his teeth.

Coakes had dozens of such minor physical impairments. His eyes periodically leaked from chronic conjunctivitis. His wide mouth held the furred tongue of constipation, and panted halitotic reeks. He had flat feet, and atruamatic patellar instability. He had thinning hair, and a short, fat and sharply curved penis. Coakes’ body was a temple to chaotic Eris. A hefty yet weak, high machine, with angry fish-hook fingers. Coakes suspected, deep down, that the infirmity which afflicted his cock was related somehow, to a habit of frottage he had nurtured as an adolescent. This was one of eight secrets about himself that Coakes had never, and would never, tell anyone."

I'm RJ Barker, you've never heard of me. I write the 'Dead' Dave York stories. A cynical and not overly intelligent detective, a Mute Zombie-werewolf and a Fundamentalist Christian vampire fight crime in a cod-noir stylee. Four novellas were released in 2003, out of print now but got reasonable reviews. Then I got ill. First full length novel (imaginatively titled 'Dead?Dave') is due at the end of this year.

You can read the entire novella Who's Yo Daddy there. An everyday tale of Preachers, monsters and dressing up as old ladies.

Or you can go to the rather good arthouse netzine Off Beat Pulp who are serializing the story 'All Hail the Zombie King' with some nice images in between the pages. Offbeat is a good magazine just in general, if I'm honest I lower the tone a bit.

I'm Adam P. Knave and I have a collection of shorts coming out Any Day Now called Crazy Little Things. You can read the title story for free over here. It's 12 stories of... stuff. some horror, some spec fic, some SF. Genre is a tool, not a focus. There is a zombie western tale, a pair of killer teddy bears and a love story involving donuts. Hell, they're almost all love stories, unless they bring out my hatred of dogs and children. You can go buy Crazy Little Things here.

I also have a series of 3 novellas - The Strange Angel series which can be purchased at the clicky point there. Strange Angel is Buffy shot through a camera of realism (while still dealing with super-fucking-natural stuff), but really it is simply what life is like for a teenager. Except, you know, with super-fucking-natural stuff. Or as the back of book 1 puts it:

Susie Sparrow has had a few bad months. She’s failing History, been violently attacked by people from her school, annoyed by her brother, discovered her dog is sick, killed a handful of people, gotten sick of her parents going vegetarian, and possessed by an immortal spirit of vengeance and justice. The last few months were simple. In the days ahead Susie’s life is going to get far, far worse. Lucky for her she has big flaming wings to help her deal.

My book is called, Mr. Ping's Almanac of the Twisted & Weird presents Boyd McCloyd and the Perpetual Motion Machine. It's for middle schoolers and young adult readers. It's coming out in June in paperback, but you should be able to download a pdf by May. You can read a production log at gracelandwest.com. It's all about yetis, talking crocodiles, air-breathing swordfish, the fattest man in Hong Kong, the Conspiricetti, and much more. Here's the beginning of Chapter 24: Dead Etiquette.*

*note: Reggie is a yeti, Smelts is a talking crocodile, and Boyd is Boyd

The afternoon began to creep across the city as Boyd, Reggie, and Smelts jogged down the sidewalks of Wan Chai, looking for a taxi to pick them up. Crowds on the street would part, panicked at the sight of the three of them, and this didn’t help with the taxi situation. More than one taxi had sped away in a panic as Reggie approached them, frightened by the sight of a yeti with his arms waving in the air to get them to slow down and pick them up. One cab driver, who was cornered at a stoplight, burst from his taxi and fled down the street, screaming, “Yeti! Yeti! Yeti!” As the last of the taxis sped away from them, Reggie stopped, tired and out of breath, on the sidewalk in front of a Thai food restaurant. “This is ridiculous,” he said. “No taxi in this city is going to stop for the three of us. I, alone, look like their worst nightmares come true and that’s not even including Smelts.” “Are you implying something about my looks, mate?” Smelts asked. “No, no,” Reggie said. “The bottom line is that we need someone reliable.” “Well, who could that be?” Boyd asked. “No taxi in this city will stop for us.” “Yeah,” Smelts said. “And that stupid swordfish is gonna be comin’ along any minute now.” “I have my connections,” Reggie said, pulling a phone from his pocket and tapping in a number. “Hello, Xiao? It’s Reggie…Yeah, it’s been way too long…Listen, we’re in a bit of a spot down here at Johnson’s Road and Queen’s Road East and we need a lift…Yeah…Yeah…Okay.” Reggie turned to them and said, “We’re in luck. He’s in the area.” After a wait of around five minutes across from the prying eyes of a group of locals standing a safe distance across the street, Smelts said, “I think our ride is here.” Up to the curb pulled a taxi cab that in weight, shape and size looked very much like the thousands of taxis that circulated throughout the arteries of the city, only there was something a bit peculiar about this one. The main difference between this taxi and the ones Boyd was used to seeing was the fact that this one looked as if someone had rolled it off the side of a cliff. There were scrapes and dents and scratches all over it, and it looked as if it might fall apart at any time. It also had the usual markings of a taxi all over it, including the little sign on the roof and white writing on the doors. But upon closer inspection, it was obvious that all the writing on the cab was backwards and the windows were smoky, making it impossible to see inside. “That’s our ride?” Smelts asked. “Why don’t we just hop in the back of a garbage truck?” “Garbage trucks aren’t reliable,” Reggie said. “This guy is reliable.” They ventured up to the cab and opened the back door, which was like opening the door to an ancient tomb as a major gust of white smoke burst forth from the cracks. It was as if the air inside the car had been trapped for centuries. Strange, creepy-crawly bugs began to make their way out from the inside, and Boyd saw several birds (although he was sure they were actually bats) flutter forth from the door to freedom. “What kind of taxi is this?” Smelts asked. “You’re just going to have to trust me,” Reggie said. “Get in.” “I’m not gettin’ in there,” Smelts said. “You go first.” “Fine,” Reggie said. “Chicken!” Reggie climbed into the taxi first, followed by Smelts and then Boyd. Once inside, Boyd could see that all the lurking suspicions he’d had about the interior were confirmed as he settled into his seat. The backseat was rotting away. In some places, the inside cushioning was exposed. In others, the very same cushioning was disintegrating away into a pulpy mess. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling and an eerie haze hung in the air that contained a putrid odor that was much worse than smoke. From beneath the seat in front of him, Boyd caught a glimpse of two, yellow eyes watching him from the shadows. “Cor!” Smelts said as he shut the door. “I put my foot in something slimy!”

Okay, not really. I'm Keith R.A. DeCandido, a writer, editor, anthologist, musician, and karate student. As an editor I almost worked with Our Fearless Host when I was editing Marvel Comics novels and he wanted to write a Daredevil novel. It didn't happen for a variety of reasons that are too tiresome to go into here -- plus, it was ten years ago and I don't remember.

However, this is a call for novelists, so I'll mention that I've written more than 30 of them. All but one are written in various and sundry universes owned by other people: Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Farscape, Supernatural, World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Marvel Comics, and a bunch more.

If you search my name on Amazon.com, you can buy most of my books, but be warned that Serenity: Mirror Image does not exist, will not exist, and never will exist, and if this disappoints you, talk to Joss Whedon. (If you want the full story, e-mail me at keith at decandido dot net -- or just wander around the internets, as I've told the story several billion times over the past year or so.)

Where was I? Oh yeah....

My most recent novels are:

Star Trek: Klingon Empire: A Burning House, which takes an in-depth look at life in the Klingon Empire (opera, farms, slums, medical conferences, etc.)Star Trek: The Next Generation: Q & A, the ultimate Q story, where all his prior appearances are tied together (really!)Supernatural: Nevermore, the first book based on the CW TV series, as the boys head to New York City to stop a haunting and a grisly series of murdersResident Evil: Extinction, the novelization of the film, in which I fill in the gaps of what happened between Apocalypse and Extinction, meaning that only about half the book is the movie, with the other stuff being backstory and subplotsBuffy the Vampire Slayer: The Deathless and Blackout, the former being a third-season story where Buffy and the Scoobies encounter folks from Russian folklore (Baba Yaga, Koschei the Deathless, Bulat the Brave), the latter the story of Nikki Wood, the badasssssss Slayer from 1977 New York City

Upcoming:

CSI: NY: Four Walls, a straight mystery, featuring murders in a Staten Island prison and in a Bronx bakery (May)Star Trek: A Gutted World, one of three short novels that will be in the trade paperback Myriad Universes: Echoes & Refractions featuring an alternate Trek universe (August)Supernatural: Bone Key, which has the boys go to Key West over New Year's to deal with supercharged ghosts and two escaped demons (September)

I also edited a Doctor Who: Short Trips anthology for Big Finish called The Quality of Leadership, which will be out in May and features stories by Peter David, Diane Duane, and other neat folks.

I think that's it. At least for novels. I could mention comics and short stories and eBooks, but then Warren might hurt me. Of course, I'm a brown belt in karate, and he's a sad old drunk an ocean away, but still.....

(Kidding, Warren! You know I love you like the brother I could never get rid of!)

beyond what you can gleam from the website...it's about drinking, killing and satan. don't be shy about friending on myspace or plugging on the guestbook. i'll add links to my site for any authors looking for more traffic on theirs.

I mostly write screenplays, but I traffic in prose too. This comes from a short story, Rules of the Game, that was published in the anthology Naked City by Route in 2004:

So you wake up and it wasn't a dream - you did talk and her number's on the flap of the Rizla packet that's poking out of your jeans. The woman in The Peacock you were calling Daryl Henna in your pillow talk before you even spoke. She's working in the day, Skidoo or something, that gallery on the way to Selectadisc, which means you've got hours to research that casual call since you want this one to go right. You've got to go somewhere, and it can't just be a drink or a meal after the way you joked about dating last night, so you look through City Lights and strike out a couple of bands because they've been in the charts already and you know you'll be five years older than most of the audience which makes you almost as old as the group and that just won't do. Which means the only suitable gig - barring Air at Rock City, and the tickets are sold out - is Christ On A Mountainbike, who are admittedly great live but unfortunately look better in cycling shorts than you do. Besides, Mandy might still be selling t-shirts for them and that's a confrontation you could do without this special evening. If she's lived in Nottingham more than six months she'll have seen them once or twice anyway, which also means she's unlikely to be quite so impressed by your being on smoking terms with Dermot the bass player. Over the page then, which is where the fringe events are listed and adding sophistication to your credentials can only be a good thing where Ms. Henna is concerned (but remember - her name's Anne). Alternative circus is as pricy as it is passé, but elsewhere and cheaper - and nearer your place if we're going to be practical about these things - is a post-Lenny Henry comedian who impressed at least one of the music weeklies with his offhand surrealism and corduroy shirt. Tony Dapper it is then, tickets £7.50 (£6.00 concs), 8.30 meaning 9.30 and a Grolsch in the bar beforehand. But what to wear? The leather's good, and though she's already seen it a consistent image could suggest a more general self-assurance, but then there's the new hooded top, the G-Force one...these things matter when impressions are formed in a breakbeat barrage of soundbites and samples, and identity - as a caption in the last i-D over a distorted photocopy of a French philosopher paraphrased - is a matter of imposing your own signal on everyone else's noise.

I'm Kris Hansen and my novel writing efforts are pretty poor. However, I have my own audiobook production company and we're producing our first big release for the summer, and working with lots of aspiring and developing writers. Our audiobooks are much more filmic that is traditional, with dedicated scores, dramatised sequences and using clever stereo and stuff. So, not print, but still literature. I'll post a demo as soon as I'm no longer contracted not to!

While it is my dream to write a graphic novel, I've started with a standard novel...still untitled:Hope its not too long, just the intro.

Sitting, Gary twisted his head to the side and then back over his other shoulder to take in his surroundings for what was probably the eighth time. Like the seven previous attempts to do the same, he was forced to the same conclusion; he was screwed. He saw nothing that would get him out of his current predicament. A large part of his problem was his limited range of motion. It was exceedingly difficult to survey ones situation whilst tied to a chair. He sighed and dropped his head to his chest. He had already seen enough of the room when he first entered it to know that it held little of use. Probably even less than that since his captors had apparently been expecting him and had doubtlessly secured the area first. He didn’t know who these men were really, but he knew enough about them to know that they were professionals. As to what they were professionals of, he was stumped. He felt stupid, again. With his chin resting uncomfortably on his chest Gary took the time to mentally take stock of his situation and, more specifically, how the hell he’d ended up in it! At first, he wanted to bring it all back to his son’s arrest and his own subsequent dismissal from the force. But he had to admit that was unlikely, that was years ago, and he had bounced back since. Well, less bounce and more falling flat on face, but he had survived it. Things had even started looking up when he first met Agent Carver. He had secured a comfortable government job, a new apartment and some measure of self respect. It wasn’t a typical government job, but it was one he was good at. Maybe this was all Carver’s fault? Gary dismissed the possibility as soon as he considered it. While Agent Carver had freely risked Gary’s life before, walking into this mess had been Gary’s choice, not Carver’s. So, as much as he would like to, he couldn’t blame Carver, or the job. Was it because of a woman, he asked himself, a dead woman? A flash of angry bitterness accompanied that last memory and his right ear was still a little muted from the explosion. Once again he knew he would have to look elsewhere to place blame. While he was still very upset by it all; his path had already been set, even before her demise. It was a path set by a simple man with a simple calling: Dinger. He was the real reason Gary was going to die.He sighed deeply, maybe it was nobody’s fault, and maybe it could all just be fate.No. Not fate. Gary didn’t believe in fate. Karma, then? Yeah, he thought to himself, this must be Karma. Gary believed in Karma.

Hi, my name's Guy Adams, although my first novel is currently in print with 'Gregory Ashe' as the name on the cover... there were reasons, not least of all creative, as to why. That first book is an old fashioned kid's book with a bit of modern twist called The Imagineer. Nothing to do with Walt Fucking Disney.

There was a (far superior) sequel of sorts called More Than This which had vicious mods and Double Decker buses twatting animated statues. That's out of print though until I decide on something cunning to do with what is, in many ways, a children's novel with extreme violence and the word 'cunt' in it. An edit bearing realistic marketing factors in mind is called for I think...

I also write a series of novellas under the overall title of Deadbeat which are pretty much like every other pulp crime zombie comedy thrillers you've ever read. They have done very well for me, award shortlists, cracking reviews... not bad for a piss about that I never dreamed of being read by more than about five people. First is being reworked as a full length novel for a major UK publishing house. If nothing else that will keep me in Gin without having to write books about the TV show Life on Mars like this, or this or...sigh...this. I give a little interview about the Deadbeat books here.

The chief priest sat in the canoe as the boy rowed to the sacred island.

The Calusa had constructed the island themselves, amidst the many natural islands that trailed off the home peninsula. Like their homes and their tools, the island was built from the shells that the water gave them. The water also gave them food and transportation.

Now the sacred island was one of the few refuges left. Once, it had been the place where warriors gathered and where their efforts were planned and blessed by the Three Gods.

There were times that the chief priest wondered if the Three Gods had forsaken them. He did not hold such blasphemy for long. But as he watched the leader, his only son, wither away, covered in the pockmarks that the outsiders had brought to them, it was hard not to at least consider that the Three Gods had forsaken them, that the Calusa were no longer worthy of the gods' gifts.

His son would be dead soon. Even if the outsiders' diseases did not take him, as they had the war chief, then the Creek or the Yamasee would. Once, such lesser tribes feared the mighty Calusa. Then the outsiders came. They, too, feared the Calusa, who rejected their trinkets and their single god.

But the Creek and the Yamasee were weak, so they accepted the outsiders' gifts--including their weapons. The Calusa were once feared in part because of their weapons made with the shells provided by the water, but the metal shells of the outsiders were mightier than the shells of the sea.

Between the raids and the sickness, the Calusa were ravaged. They could no longer protect their friends, such as the Seminoles and the Tequesta, and they could no longer defeat their enemies.

The chief priest knew that soon they would all be dead. Perhaps within two seasons.

So he needed to prepare, as he and the other priests had decided.

"We are here," the boy said. The chief priest looked up, having fallen into a reverie, and not realized that they had arrived.

"Come," the chief priest said, slowly rising to his feet on old bones that creaked and cracked.

The boy helped the chief priest steady himself as they disembarked, then he retrieved the large gourds containing the items that the chief priest had requested he bring with him.

When they were on the hard land of the sacred island, the boy said, "Tell me what I must do."

"The shadow soul and the reflection soul are of no use to us," the chief priest said. "They are given to the animals of the land and sea to live new lives. But the eye soul remains, and it is that which we must harness." The chief priest put a hand on the boy's chest. "We give our lives today so that one day the Calusa may have their revenge."

Standing proud, the boy said, "I would rather die in the service of the Calusa than wither away from the outsiders' sickness."

With a smile, the chief priest added, "Or be bloodied by the outsiders' weapons?" Before the boy could protest, the chief priest reassured him. "It does not matter. Your courage is already well known to us all. It is why the Three Gods chose you. And it is why when our people are gone, you and I shall remain behind to bind the eye souls of our people together."

Nodding, the boy said, "I am ready."

First, the boy took out the masks. Calusa masks covered the entire face with painted wood, with holes only for the eyes, to keep that soul unfettered. For the priest, the mask was blue, white, and red with an open mouth rendered to symbolize his conversations with the Three Gods. As for the boy, his mask was red, black, and white and portrayed the fierceness of a warrior born.

The chief priest removed the three daggers from the gourd, handing one to the boy and holding the other two in his hands. Then he began the dance and the chant to the gods. The boy followed along, mirroring the chief priest's movements.

After they had completed three circles, the chief priest sliced open his left wrist with the dagger in his right hand, then reached out and did the same to the boy's left hand.

At a nod from the chief priest, he and the boy both then lunged for each other. The dagger in the priest's right hand plunged into the boy's chest even as the boy's dagger plunged into the priest's.

The chief priest felt the life blood drain from him, and he knew that the Three Gods had not forsaken him, for if they had, they would not have provided him with the means of avenging the Calusa upon the world.

Hey Warren, I am working on a novel called “The World that Was” and have been posting it in chapters via my myspace page (www.myspace.com/katilion), amongst other places. I am working on a website, but its not up yet. Anyways, It’s a post-apocalyptic tale in which nature decides it’s had enough of the us; and decides to take back the wheel. It’s my first attempt, but some people have seemed to like it. The first 8 chapters are up as of right now. I typically add a new one every two weeks. Here is the first two paragraphs.

"It was early spring. Dusk was settling over the flatlands of Ohio as they reached the limits of Celina. Their headlights illuminated the typical scene. Gray concrete lined with shifting shadows, creating a haunted sense of liveliness. These shadows seeming almost conscious of the preternatural stillness beneath. Edwin knew that it was absurd to suggest some sentient quality within the moving pallets of light, yet he felt that there was something there. Unease lingered just beyond the edifice of the obvious, slipping into the mirrored slumber that veiled the remaking of the earth.

Jacob slowed the car as it approached the center of town. It was a small town, knowledge that he took some comfort in. Silence and stillness somehow seemed more acceptable on this scale then it did in the larger cities. He could pretend, if only for a moment, that there was a logical cause for the lifeless tranquility. He never truly lost sight of what they were in the midst of, but he could imagine that it was the still of morning, and that at any point a young boy may walk the streets, delivering the newspapers to the sleeping masses. Would it happen? No, but rarely is comfort a reflection of truth."

I'm Cherie. Mostly I do southern gothica with ghosts and monsters, but that's changing -- since I'm a slave to my environment, and these days I live in Seattle. I've sold 5 novels to Tor and 2 to Subterranean Press, of which a total of four are presently available. If anyone's curious, I've got a full bibliography here. If no one's curious, I'll pick up the pieces of my shattered life and move on.

Next in my queue is a world-eating dark fantasy with old gods, pirates, and Cthulhuoid cults; and then there's a trashy noir book which is essentially Red Harvest rewritten with vampires and a 300-year-old Italian monk instead of the Continental Op. Following that, steampunk Victoriana with Bonus! extended/deleted scenes from the American Civil War.